• 232 Chamber Magic^® performances at the Waldorf Astoria New York
• 14,000 visitors to Chamber Magic^®
• 15 national and international performances

Magazine Feature #1

I was interviewed in the ultra high-end Manhattan Magazine, Jan/Feb 2015 issue. Ethan Hawke appears on the cover. 

Chan Canasta Art Exhibition

I launched a one-day art exhibition as a tribute to Chan Canasta, an admired magician who left show business to follow his passion as a painter.

Canasta died in 1999, and I recently became friends with his widow Renata. We worked together to locate nearly 40 of Chan Canasta’s paintings, and I displayed them in my suite at the Waldorf Astoria. Approximately 150 people attended, and the event was a fantastic success. Throughout the afternoon I performed some of Chan’s card magic, and also screened television footage of Chan so visitors could see him “at work.”

NBC Television Spotlight

Chamber Magic^® was featured on NBC television, New York Live. Watch the full video here.

TENYO-ISM book has arrived!

I’ve translated all of Tenyo’s instructions from Japanese to English since 1997. It is an honor to be included in the new Tenyo-ism book by Richard Kaufman, with my own page.

This book set is unbelievable. A massive, heavy, and ultimately invaluable piece of magic history. I assisted in translating many pages from Japanese to English. If you have even the littlest interest in Tenyo magic, this is an incredible investment that will delight you for years!

Magazine Feature #2

A “local boy made good” article in Westchester Magazine.

Award of Excellence from Linking Ring magazine

I published an article titled “The Eleven Commandments of Parlor Magic” and was delighted to receive an award from the International Brotherhood of Magicians for this piece.

Visited Houdini’s gravesite

A friend from Japan visited New York so I took him to many Houdini-related spots, including Houdini’s home on West 113th Street, and Houdini’s gravesite in Queens.

#10 top show in NYC on TripAdvisor

When I started Chamber Magic^® in New York 16 years ago, my goal was to help raise public respect toward magic as a performing art. I wanted people to consider going to a magic show instead of the opera, or the ballet. It is highly gratifying to see that my vision has been recognized by so many others.

According to TripAdvisor.com, the top 10 Theater & Concerts in NYC are:

1.Lion King

2. Jersey Boys

3. Wicked

4. Beautiful – The Carole King Musical

5. The Phantom of the Opera

6.Kinky Boots

7. Radio City Music Hall

8.The Metropolitan Opera

9. Les Miserables

10. Steve Cohen’s Chamber Magic^®

Japanese book reprinted

My book “Win The Crowd” was reprinted in Japanese with a new cover. My friends at Tenyo told me that my books are stacked on the main shelf (the best position) in bookstores across Japan.

“Priceless” MasterCard review

Chamber Magic^® “Priceless” review by MasterCard website: “Your mind will be blown, no matter how skeptical you are.”

Premiere League Soccer meets Magic

We had a family dinner in NYC with Christian Fuchs, a pro soccer player on the English Premiere League team Leicester City. He is a fun, dynamic, and talented guy who has helped my son grow as an athlete. Christian is the captain of the Austrian National Soccer Team.

Of course I showed everyone some magic and Christian reciprocated with some awesome soccer ball juggling.

Tony Award Winner

Broadway and Younger star Sutton Foster sat in the front row at Chamber Magic^®. A true delight to meet her, and we enjoyed a chat afterwards. Months later she told the Huffington Post that Chamber Magic^® is her favorite date night in New York City.

Magic Mentor Monday Series

I researched and published a series of well-received articles on my blog, centering around my magical mentors. Each Monday for two months, I released a new long-form article that covered the teachings of beloved magicians from yesteryear: Max Malini, Johann Hofzinser, Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, Charles Bertram, Think-A-Drink Hoffman, Albert Goshman, and Harry Lorayne. I will continue this series in 2016 with future articles about Mark Sicher, Danny Kaye, Sammy Davis Jr, Willy Wonka, and more.

Black TYCOON Cards released

TYCOONS, my custom playing cards co-created with Theory 11, received such accolades from discerning card players and magicians that we decided to release a new edition in black. I use all three editions in my show: red, blue, and black.

My Newest Secret Project Started…

And finally… I’ve begun work on my latest project, a graphic novel titled The Millionaires’ Magician, which will be released in 2016. Together with a team of incredible artists and writers who work for Marvel and DC, I have created an origin story for my performing character, presented in a 100 page graphic novel in full color. You are not going to believe how gorgeous this book will be! Much more to come in the coming year.

Thank you, everyone, for your ongoing support of my show. I look forward to sharing more magic with you in 2016.

The post 2015 Year in Review appeared first on Chamber Magic.

Chan Canasta (1920-1999) is one of my heroes in magic. In front of live audiences he took major risks that are breathtaking to behold. Sometimes a trick wouldn’t work and his entire presentation failed. Unlike a traditional magician, Chan Canasta was fine with that. Failure was an acceptable outcome. But when he succeeded, ah! The outcome was gloriously impossible. This was part of the public’s fascination toward Chan’s brand of psychological illusion – they were keenly aware that his experiments could fail, so they believed he was real. His approach elicited empathy, and audiences earnestly wanted him to succeed.

“Failure only makes the successes more exciting.” -Chan Canasta

In the 1950s and 60s, Chan appeared on hundreds of television shows in England and the United States, including the Ed Sullivan show and The Tonight Show with Jack Paar.

Later in life, he left the world of public performance and focused on another lifelong passion – painting. As artists evolve, they often find new outlets to express themselves. Chan put down the deck of cards and picked up a paintbrush to stimulate audiences in a fresh way. His paintings presented the world in a dreamlike fashion, challenging viewers to discern the difference between reality and illusion.

Today Chan Canasta paintings are seldom seen – most are held in private collections spread across the globe. I encountered my first Chan Canasta painting in 2004 hanging on the wall of Derren Brown’s flat in London. It made an impact on me because I knew that the canvas behind the plate glass had been personally touched by our mutual hero. Although Chan died in 1999 and I had never met him in person, I felt his presence while standing in the same room as his painting.

Years later, I chanced across an eBay auction containing twenty Chan Canasta paintings. At the time I wasn’t in the market to purchase art, but I felt a sudden inspiration to create screenshots of each painting. I saved those digital files and later posted them in a blog post on my website, dated April 13, 2010. The dealer selling these paintings was located in Brussels, Belgium, and I instructed my blog visitors to contact this dealer via eBay if they wished to purchase an original Canasta.

After a week of being listed on eBay, something magical yet disturbing happened. Not only did the auction listings end, but the Belgian art dealer himself had vanished. There was no way to track him down on eBay, since he had used an untraceable screen name that didn’t correspond to any known galleries.

I continued to host the twenty images on my blog. Five years passed.

On January 9, 2015, I received an email from a lady named Renata Kadrnka who explained that she was Chan Canasta’s widow. The day she wrote would have been Chan’s 95^th birthday and she was reminiscing about life with her late husband. Renata had searched the Internet for articles about Chan, and stumbled across my blog post.

To my knowledge, Renata has had no contact with magicians or show business folk since Chan died. I would venture to say that nobody in the magic business even knew she existed.

This fortuitous email was the beginning of a long conversation that continued for months. As we wrote and spoke with each other, I asked Renata if she would be interested in presenting an exhibition to feature Chan’s artwork and to celebrate his life. Renata lives in Europe but had been planning to visit the United States with her daughter, so together we decided to launch a special exhibition during their stay.

My Chamber Magic shows at the Waldorf Astoria hotel are held on Friday and Saturday each week in a spacious suite in the Waldorf Towers. I explained to Renata that this would be an ideal location for our event, so we decided to host it in my familiar environs.

Once the ball began rolling, all sorts of developments began to surface. Renata tracked down other fans and friends of Chan’s, several who own paintings they have agreed to loan to our exhibition. Most recently, she even located the Belgian art dealer who has been storing all twenty of the eBay paintings in the basement of his gallery! He has graciously agreed to ship those paintings to New York to add immeasurable breadth to our exhibition.

One exciting development is that Renata has located TV footage of Chan’s appearances that has not been viewed since the 1960s. This footage is currently being transferred to DVD and will be screened at our event.

The date of this historic celebration is Sunday, June 28, 2015 from 2pm to 5pm in my Waldorf Towers suite; Renata will be there to greet visitors and talk about her husband’s life and work. If you plan to attend my Chamber Magic show earlier that weekend at the Waldorf Astoria, I suggest you make plans soon since those shows (June 26 and 27) will sell out quickly. The Chan Canasta event on Sunday is free, and some paintings will be available for purchase.

Throughout his career, Chan Canasta was known as a remarkable man. I guarantee he will continue to dazzle and delight modern audiences and viewers with the wonder of his timeless artistry.

Details:

Date: Sunday, June 28, 2015

Time: 2pm to 5pm

Address: The Towers of the Waldorf Astoria, 100 East 50th Street, New York, NY

RSVP by June 15th to: hollypeppe@gmail.com

The post Chan Canasta Art Exhibition in New York appeared first on Chamber Magic.

After his career as a television personality in the U.K., he decided to become a professional painter.

Here is a gallery of some original Chan Canasta paintings. At the time I originally posted this (April 2010), they were for sale through a Belgian art dealer I came across online. The asking price was roughly $9,000 to $10,000 per painting. This dealer seems to have vanished, so I have no further information of how to purchase these paintings any longer.

CLICK AN IMAGE BELOW TO VIEW A LARGER VERSION. Note the artist’s signature at the bottom of each painting. Enjoy the vivid colors!

The post Chan Canasta’s paintings appeared first on Chamber Magic.